Fantastically Tiny Fungi

On November 17, 2022, two new species of Mycena subcyanocephala were spotted by Eric Cho, a pharmacist.

There isn’t much known about this mushroom other than the story of how it was found. Chiang Pei-Ying, one of Cho’s friends, contacted Cho and told him that the Bixi Trail in the Shilin District had a “special tiny mushroom” that was worth investigating. Cho later found the Mycena on a piece of wood and decided to take it home.

The mushroom turned out to be a drab grayish-white color, initially disappointing Cho. He hoped that turning off all the lights at night would result in a glow from the mushroom but the mushroom showed no successful result. Cho then properly sprayed the fungi daily to keep it moist hoping something would result from the mushroom.

After three months, on March 7, a new spawn appeared on the wood showing its vibrant blue color. He wrote a research paper about these two very different mushrooms and titled it, “Two new species of Mycena in Taiwan.” In this research paper, he concluded that the blue color only appears in the young stage and eventually fades away to a light-blue or whitish color when it reaches maturation. In his research paper, he called the beautifully blue mushroom Mycena subcyanocephala and the grayish-white mushroom Mycena diplazii.